


Reset

by thesleepingsatellite



Category: Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-16 00:57:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2249901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesleepingsatellite/pseuds/thesleepingsatellite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She watches his mouth work, speechless, before his face breaks out into a wide grin. He looks at her as if he knows her, and a shiver runs down her spine as she realizes <i>he does</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reset

**Author's Note:**

  * For [livii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/livii/gifts).



> A dozen drabbles about Rita Vrataski, set after the ending of the movie, for a lady with a keen appreciation for short fiction.

The cheer rises up around her, but Rita remains silent amidst the jubilation. The end of the war feels unreal to her. She had been fighting for so very long that violence and tactics are all she knows, all she is. She feels alone.

She looks at the screen erected beside the podium showing images of the enemy frozen in defeat, and it strikes her that perhaps she isn't so alone after all. Someone with the Power is responsible for this win, though looking at the images of Paris burning, she doubts she will ever meet them.

Maybe, one day.

* * *

Rarely does Rita allow herself to spend a moment in peace. Her body and mind are weapons attuned to violence and action - a consequence of thousands of loops and a great many battles. Her mind cannot adjust to the reality of the enemy's defeat, so she retreats to her practice chamber, hopeful that the serenity of solitary exercise will allow her to process the change. 

She walks to the center of the room without enabling the skittering robots and enters into a sun salutation, spreading her arms wide to welcome the day before bowing to the floor. It is over.

* * *

She watches as he crosses the threshold, taking his hat into his hands. Normally, if someone dared to enter the practice floor, the klaxon would sound, but not today. Without the robots, there is no need for alarm. None at all.

Holding his eye, she moves smoothly into upward-facing dog before bounding to her feet. "Yes?" She challenges, chin high. "What do you want?"

She watches his mouth work, speechless, before his face breaks out into a wide grin. He looks at her as if he knows her, and a shiver runs down her spine as she realizes _he does_.

* * *

They're huddled together in the mess hall, leaning toward each other to talk in hushed tones over the metal trays filled with bland spaghetti and meat sauce.

"And then the general said, 'I don't believe what I'm seeing'. You know, he said that every damn time-" 

He stops and looks at her, his eyes trained on a spot just left of her nose. 

It's disconcerting, so she draws her eyebrows together. "Have I got something on my face?" 

"You always asked me that," he says, and she freezes when he reaches out with a napkin. "For once, you actually do."

* * *

The crowd cheers for her, and she keeps her head high, waving to the onlookers from the backseat of the slowly moving convertible car. 

She looks for him.

He's waiting with a film crew near the end of the parade route, cheering with the crowd, a wide grin on his face. Seeing him, her own smile becomes genuine in response. She wishes he was standing beside her instead of watching from the sidelines. He is the war hero that will never be lauded, his deeds erased from time. 

At least she knows, and to Cage, that seems to be enough.

* * *

He's staring at her again. 

"What?"

"I was just thinking," he says, averting his eyes at last. "Your face was the last thing I saw so many times before I died."

She frowns. "I'm surprised you can bear to look at me at all, then."

"On the contrary, I liked having something beautiful to look at before I died."

She slaps at his arm. "You're such a flatterer."

His brow crinkles. "How did you do it? You didn't have anyone to do it for you."

"I got really good at suicide."

"That's no way to live."

"You're right about that."

* * *

Sometimes, she wonders if there are others out there. Statistically, it doesn't seem likely that not a single other soldier ever killed an Alpha during the course of the war. 

During the Victory Tour, she studies faces. She meets the eyes of every person she encounters, hoping for a spark of recognition, of understanding. She sometimes speaks in code, referring to deaths occurring in loops and other allusions, hoping that there are soldiers in the audience whose experience matches hers and Cage's.

Thus far, nobody has stepped forward to approach her. She wonders if it will always be this way.

* * *

She moves back to gauge his expression, already missing the soft pressure of his lips against hers, to find him looking at her with a toothy grin. He laughs softly.

"What?" 

"It's just, I've been waiting for you to do that forever," he says, his hand tightening on her waist.

"You mean to tell me, in all those loops together we never kissed?"

His smile falters. "You kissed me once, in Paris. During the last iteration, right before you lured the Alpha away from me."

"You never told me that."

"Didn't want to pressure you," he says, kissing her again.

* * *

Rita is a guarded person, her defenses a tall and spiked barbed wire fence, and this is why it frightens her how much he knows about her.

They're on a date, their third. A government official had handed her tickets to the ballet, and Cage had smiled and said "Why not?"

Sitting in the fourth row, his fingers curl around hers as he leans in. 

"They're so graceful, like you." 

"My mother made me take lessons when I was young."

"I remember. You said dance training helped you remember the steps."

Only she'd never told him that before, at all.

* * *

"You want to know the one thing that really struck me as unfair?"

He laughs softly. "Besides the dying a thousand days thing?"

"Yeah. Besides that."

She pushes her shirt sleeve up and flexes her bicep. "It took me months to get that. _Outside of the loop_. Every loop my skills improved, but I wasn't exactly jacked when I got the Power in the first place. Being able to actually see physical changes in my body was one of the few pleasures I had after I got out of the loop."

"I still have a potbelly."

"Believe me, I know."

* * *

"Tell me again."

"We met on a beach." He smiles, a cocky half-grin.

She shifts in his lap, pushing his shoulders against the sofa behind him as she arches an eyebrow. "What was it like?"

"Beautiful. The waves were crashing against the shore, the sun was shining. A perfect day."

Her hand grasps his jaw and she leans down to breathe against his lips. "Liar," she says, tightening her fingers. "Tell me again."

He swallows. "I was terrified. Everybody was dying, but then there you were. You looked like an angel."

"You're such a cheesy motherfucker." She kisses him anyway.

* * *

In bed, in the dark hours of night, Rita wonders what will happen when Cage dies. Perhaps the world will reset to that grey morning when he awoke in the helicopter over London. She likes to think that he would seek her out again, so that they could relive their romance over and over in infinite loops. She occasionally wonders if he would choose another path, explore all that the world has to offer. She wonders what she would do in his place.

She rolls over, and looks out the window to see a shooting star streak through the skies.


End file.
